


old pale memories (of someone you knew)

by magicites



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Canon Universe, Forgiveness, Friendship, Gen, I beat the game and I'm still hyped, MAJOR SPOILERS for KH3, in this house we love and appreciate Kairi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-04
Updated: 2019-02-07
Packaged: 2019-10-22 02:10:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17654039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magicites/pseuds/magicites
Summary: What it takes to come home, when your home no longer remembers you.





	1. Salt

**Author's Note:**

> Long author's note, conveniently divided into four easy points.
> 
> 1\. I cannot believe in the good year of 2019 I'm writing Kingdom Hearts fic. My first longfics were all for Kingdom Hearts, back in 2010. They were all awfully written and incredibly OOC, but small me figured that since she could write complete sentences she was already a step ahead of half of the other authors on FFnet. There was one about cats. It was especially bad. I've come a long way, BUT NOT LONG ENOUGH APPARENTLY
> 
> 2\. I promise I tried to be canon compliant. I really did. But if I miss something then... oh well. Also, they never really explained what exactly a Princess of Heart can do, so... more cool powers for Kairi!!!!
> 
> 3\. This fic is gen for the most part, but there are a few implied ships/past ships if you squint. You can read them as friendship, though! They're Xion/Naminé, Axel/Saix, and Sora/Riku/Kairi. 
> 
> 4\. I love Xion until my dying breath and I am so happy that my girl got what she deserved

A fairy tale’s happy ending comes once the witch is defeated, caught in her own trap, or thrown from a great height, or any other number of grisly endings that no princess would ever have to face.

To be reunited with Kairi was the happiest ending Naminé could have ever hoped for. Her end did not come by fire, or by her bones splitting against rocks when she finally reached the cliff’s bottom, but by a gentle light and a heart so full of love that Naminé still wonders if Kairi was ever incomplete without her.

So why then, does Kairi cry so often after something wonderful happens?

Naminé cannot see the world through her eyes. She cannot feel the wind on her face, or hear the waves crash against the shore, or feel her feet in the sand when she stands on the beach. The best Naminé can do is sense vague impressions of the world around Kairi. The beach feels different from the school, which feels vastly different from the strange not-world Kairi currently resides in. She can feel echoes of her emotions, filtered through the strands that weave Naminé into Kairi’s being.

There’s a little wariness, mostly directed towards Axel. It’s a feeling Naminé knows all too well. Mostly, there is love, pouring out of Kairi like a flood. It becomes a torrent when she’s with Sora and Riku. Any fire within her is far from evil, never meant to raze fields and destroy lives. It’s meant to keep a cold home warm, to provide comfort and guidance.

It’s what drags Kairi to a being far more powerful than Naminé can put into words and beg him to train her. Kairi wants it with her whole being, every piece of her screaming to give her the power to protect the people she loves. Naminé wants it for her, too.

Later on, after the master accepts Kairi’s request and every piece of her sings with joy instead of longing, she spends a simple dinner with her boys. Naminé can’t tell what they look like now, or how the cadences of their voices shift as they keep approaching adulthood, but she remembers what they used to be like.

Like Kairi, pieces of others slumber deep within their hearts. Kairi cannot sense them in the way she can, but Naminé has spent all of her existence intertwined with these people. She knows the links of their memory like she knows her own, both where they join together and where they all fall apart.

Riku has always been a knight. He’s dedicated his life to saving others, most especially the prince and princess he finds himself at the same table with now. His Replica was no different, even though she had twisted and corrupted him in every way.

In that lonely castle, he was the first one to truly see her as something other than a witch. He was wrong, but she is still grateful for him. He slumbers deep within Riku’s heart, and even if Naminé cannot help him, she knows he is there.

They remember him - Sora and Riku, Ansem the Wise, and maybe even the Organization members who kept her locked within that place - but only Naminé mourns him.

Sora’s heart is full of others, just as it always has been. She’s traced every pathway of his heart, shattered his memories to almost nothing only to put them back together again. She knows the parts of him that belong only to himself, just as she knows the parts that don’t.

There’s Roxas, no longer as angry as he once was, but in pain all the same. His hurts fester, unable to be healed when he cannot even put a name to what hurts so badly. He was trapped in a cage too. For just a few moments, he was able to break free.

Before Naminé put him a different cage and called it belonging.

There’s another, a heart far more ancient than she had expected to encounter. His bonds to this world are frayed and falling apart, but they still exist, weak as they are. Sora is not his prison, but his shelter.

His name is Ventus, and he is more of a fairy tale than Naminé could ever imagine.

But then there’s one other. Her memory disappeared from the world when she returned to Sora. No one is left to remember her, though she lives on in the hurt that Roxas still carries and the way Axel lingers around Kairi without ever explaining why. There’s no other explanation.

Naminé could not save Xion, no matter what she tried. She could only delay the inevitable. DiZ needed Sora back at all costs. The only path to his awakening required her destruction. Her whole heart isn’t even within Sora; even from this distance, with Kairi’s bright laughter and Sora’s smiles, she can tell that a part of her lays missing.

Maybe it’s gone forever, but that doesn’t mean that she has to be.

Naminé feels Sora draw close. She can’t tell why, but she can feel the way Kairi’s light brightens with every step. Riku is there too, but Naminé focuses all of her strength on reaching Sora.

Kairi’s hand goes out to touch his arm - and who controls it, whether herself or Kairi, she has no idea - and Naminé reaches with all her might for Xion. The girl is there, shining all the brighter despite Sora’s weakness. It’s unusual, given the way she lingers on the precipice of sleep and the true oblivion beyond death.

Naminé was barely her friend. They only shared a few conversations, most of which Naminé spent carefully laying down the path to Sora’s awakening and Xion’s destruction. But there was one where she did nothing but listen, right at the very end. There, Xion shared her story. She spoke of her friends, of how it didn’t matter how fake she was because the laughter she shared with Roxas and Axel was real. Of the salty-sweetness of ice cream on her tongue, the warmth of the twilight sun on her face, and of so many other things that Naminé could only dream of.

Of a sunset whose beauty she couldn’t explain with words.

She still remembers those stories. She cradles Xion’s memories close to the few strands of her heart that remain within Kairi’s. Maybe somewhere, far out there and floating between the worlds, are the fragments of data that sprung Xion into being. Maybe those still hold some piece of her.

But Xion’s memories are unconnected to the hearts who love her, save for the ones Naminé holds close. She has never been able to forget any memory, even when she wanted to. Xion has always been special, but in that regard, she is no different than anyone else. Naminé’s mind has always been less of a link and more of a sprawling web of memories - why should one replica be any different?

Naminé mourns for her, too.

Except now, she does what little she can to right yet another wrong she brought into the world. She finds the pieces of Xion’s heart, faint and battered as they are, and leaves her with one promise.

_Your heart is too deeply buried in Sora’s for me to pull you out on my own. But… if you find your way back into this world, come find me._ _I can’t give you much, but I can give you back your dream._

 

* * *

 

What good is a restored humanity if it doesn’t wash away the innocent blood that still stains Even’s hands? What’s the point in his heart’s return, when every dream it gives him is plagued by the faces of children kept in cages?

All for the sake of science. Disgusting.

When Saïx comes to him with an offer, the choice is simple. Even can do nothing to atone. But as Vexen? He can never save those children, but he can save others.

He can use his research, the light of his own life, for the purpose should have always held close to: the betterment of others.

Xehanort’s order - delivered to him via Xemnas, with Saïx hovering at his side as if he still has any semblance of authority in this place - is to reconstruct the unstable replica, Xion. Xemnas didn’t bother to explain why, his motives remaining just as inscrutable as they did when he was human. Perhaps it’s to take control of its usage of the Keyblade. Perhaps it’s to induce some strange effect within Sora. Perhaps it’s something else entirely.

But how can he bring another being into this world, only to have it used as a puppet for Xehanort to take control of once more? Even if he did reconstruct it, would it even be the same being as before? Xemnas’s records, which were only obtained after multiple heated conversations about the need to create better replicas, indicate that it became increasingly unstable over time. Without the influences that first shaped Xion, couldn’t this replica simply become someone else?

As Vexen muses this aloud, he hears a voice interrupt him.

“What are you going on about with this _it_ junk? I barely remember that twerp, but even I know Xion was a girl,” Larxene says, her voice as biting as ever.

“How do you remember that?” Vexen asks. He’s searched through his logs for any information to jog his memory on the replica, but nothing helps. The only reason he knows as much as he does is due to his records. No number of foggy memories can dispute clean data.

Larxene, apparently, is in no better situation. “I read about it in my old journals, duh!” she scoffs. “I was _so_ happy that the boys club was finally getting disrupted. Well, as happy as a Nobody whose been told she has no heart could be, I guess.”

While it gives Vexen more insight into who Xion was, it brings him no closer to discovering how to bring her back.

After endless searching, combing through worlds looking for any sight of insight into the matter, he finds his answer in the person he least expected it from.

Saïx hands him a lone seashell - or rather, he tosses it in Vexen’s direction much like he’d toss a dog a bone. Vexen cradles it in his hands, admiring how the edges seem to stand out so vibrantly against his sallow skin. The colors are soft and muted, a lovely purple fading to a gentle yellow. It shouldn’t be as remarkable as it is.

When he examines it closer, he discovers a soft glow emanating from within it. This is no ordinary seashell.

“How did you find this?” Vexen asks.

“It was the only thing left after Axel’s final betrayal,” Saïx says. Did he go there to mourn, or to cheer? It’s not a question justifiable for scientific curiosity.

“And why do you believe this could help recomplete Xion?”

Saïx’s face twitches and his eyes, sclera and all, flash gold. He regains himself quickly, but the bite infects his voice. “They were close.”

For all the mind can forget, there are still things the heart remembers. Hatred is one of them.

Yet Saïx leaves the seashell in Vexen’s hands, and he figures that this too, is a form of atonement.

It takes more research, hours split between his old quarters in The World That Never Was and Castle Oblivion, compiling research notes and running tests to create the perfect replica model. He is determined, with all his being, to create a vessel that can connect with others without losing itself.

He will create this one, and others too, until all that have lost themselves can be found again.

Finally, he creates one. It is everything his research has aspired to: a perfect vessel designed to perfectly mold to the heart it receives. Gently, he presses the seashell to its chest and lets the replica absorb whatever fragment of a heart remains in that tiny object.

A girl’s form appears before him, nearly identical to the records he has stored of Kairi. Something within him stirs, like a recollection from another time, and he knows that this is Xion.

Yet her eyes remain empty. A deep blue, like the sea miles from the shore, but without the light of the sun to break their crests. He cannot restore that spark of humanity to her, but he can protect her from Xehanort’s darkness.

It’s the least Vexen can do for her.

Yet again, Saïx assists, stopping Xemnas at the very last moment before the entirety of her fractured heart is filled with darkness. It clouds over her, but it does not consume her.

He takes solace, but he still cannot rest. Not until her connections are restored to her, however distant they may be.

His atonement continues.

 

* * *

 

Voices whisper between the leaves in this strange, beautiful place. Sometimes, when Kairi closes her eyes, she can almost make out the secrets this world-between-worlds holds. The spirits of her predecessors still fill this land with wonder. Axel can’t sense it the way she can, but they’re there all the same.

Time doesn’t hold power here the way it does elsewhere. Riku’s come to visit her several times only to reference conversations they’ve yet to have. She learns to judge what time he comes from based on the length of his hair - the longer it is, the longer the outside world has gone on without her in it. Merlin tells her that when they complete their training, little time will have truly passed at all. Even if it takes years, the worlds outside will slow to a comparative standstill for them.

It’s fine, though. Why should she get to experience time normally when Naminé can’t? She still exists, even with as much as she’s tried to blend herself fully with Kairi’s heart. Stands of her are woven into Kairi now, giving away small pieces of herself as if she could fool Kairi into thinking that these pieces have always belonged within her.

Kairi’s not an artist by any means, even if she can draw slightly better than Sora’s stick figures and Riku’s amorphous blobs that he calls people. Yet her doodles, scrawled on the edges of all the letters she’ll never send Sora, are nothing short of beautiful. She knows better than to think those belong to her.

White walls have never bothered her before, but now they make her feel trapped.

Most of all, she catches herself time and time again thinking of princesses and witches and knights. Even with the official title of a Princess of Heart, both then and now, Kairi’s always seen herself as less of a princess and more of an islander with eternally skinned knees and a desire to see what lays on the other end of the sea.

She writes all this to Sora, and tells pieces of it to Riku during his visits. It’s hard talking to Riku about Naminé, with the way he scrunches his nose up and stops meeting Kairi’s eyes. He’s the one who likes those kinds of fairy tales, not her, and she knows that he sees himself as a failure of a knight.

Maybe it’s the half-heart, the edges of someone slightly different yet wholly similar, that always hovers around him that makes him think that.

As dearly as she loves Sora and Riku, with Sora off being the hero they all need and Riku searching for Aqua (searching to right the debt he feels he owes her), Axel has quickly become one of her closest friends. She never had any siblings growing up, but she imagines spending time with Axel is what having a brother would be like.

Unlike Sora and Riku, Axel doesn’t treat Kairi like spun glass. He elbows her when she makes a bad joke and ruffles her hair just to annoy her. Neither of them pull their punches when they spar, even if doing so always makes a flash of sadness wash over his face.

She’s yet to figure out why Axel looks at her that way. She’s tried asking Naminé, but has never been able to receive an answer from her outside of a small ache in her chest. Maybe Naminé hurt and Axel’s hurt come from a similar origin.

Kairi sits alone at the edge of the secret forest, or at least as alone as she can ever be. There’s a sketchbook in her lap today instead of a piece of lined paper, though the page she’s flipped it to still stays blank. She listens to the whispers of the leaves behind her, silently pleading for Naminé to wake from her deep slumber and offer Kairi another insight into who she is.

For all of her strange powers as a Princess of Heart, why is this one girl so unreachable?

“Please,” Kairi whispers. “Let me help you.”

Kairi closes her eyes and lets her own heart call out, searching through this not-world and the ones beyond for any kind of connection that could help Naminé. Only a few lights call back out to her, hearts singing of regret and apology.

The researchers working to restore Naminé to a body she can call entirely her own. Helpful, but not what she’s looking for.

She tries again.

She senses something - no, someone? - approach her from behind. Banishing the threads of light that slipped out of her, Kairi stands up to face the woods. “Axel?”

The trees stop whispering, ushering in a hushed silence. Kairi takes another step closer to the source of this disruption, knowing deep in her heart it isn’t Axel who has come to find her here.

She pushes past a branch and discovers a figure in a black coat, just a little shorter than her, seemingly looking directly at her. She can’t see their face, but her mind goes into overdrive as she desperately searches through her mental records of the Real Organization XIII members.

She also begs her limbs to move. She can’t freeze up here, even though she’s far from ready to face this foe. She needs to summon her Keyblade and fight them off, at least long enough to find Merlin and Axel and run far, far away from this place…

Destiny’s Embrace forms in her hand, like an old friend greeting her once more. She falls into the battle stance she’s coached her muscles into finding and prepares to strike.

The figure doesn’t move. “Who are you!?” Kairi demands, fighting to keep her fear out of her voice. There is no one here to save her but herself.

The figure takes a long time to respond. Kairi’s heart pounds within her chest, fear overtaking every single receptor in her mind. She can’t panic. She can’t. She forces herself to listen to the figure’s words one-by-one, as if the figure is still struggling to remember what it’s like to speak.

“I… don’t... know,” they say.

Kairi’s weapon does not leave her hand, but she allows its teeth to fall to the ground and scrape through the grass. That’s a girl’s voice, one that sounds just a few degrees more broken than her own. Confusion ebbs over her fear, unmasking something else within the strands of her heart that aren’t hears.

Naminé’s heart, or the parts that Kairi refuses to let her give away, sings for this girl.

“You’re Naminé’s friend,” Kairi says, in wonder. She approaches the mysterious girl, spurred on by the sudden drive within her. This new feeling does not belong to Kairi.

Kairi takes her gloved hands in her own and closes her eyes, allowing herself to feel out the heart that Naminé trusts so much. She bristles at the darkness that swarms like a plague of insects within this girl. Kairi burns part of it away with her own light before it can creep into her.

Buried deep within the darkness is a tiny speck of light. It’s formless, unrooted by anything else and thrown around unceasingly by the surges of darkness, but there all the same. This girl may be a pawn of Xehanort’s, but she is not him by any means. She’s been so close to his darkness enough times to know his stench.

Naminé stirs again within her. Kairi bites back her disappointment. For all her sketching, she’s never been able to reach Naminé like this girl has simply by appearing.

Naminé still doesn’t communicate through words or images. All Kairi can understand are vague concepts, tinged with fragments of emotion and brightened by her own light.

If it wasn’t for the depths of her own strange powers (depths that she feels she may never fully explore), Kairi would be lost as to what to do. She still barely has an idea, but she banishes her Keyblade and takes the other girl’s hand as well.

Kairi closes her eyes, and let’s Naminé rise to the surface. If her appearance changes, Kairi doesn’t know.

All she knows is that Naminé gives this strange girl two gifts.

A memory, of a twilight sunset, so beautiful that it puts even the Destiny Island’s sunrises to shame, and the two people she loved more than anything else in any world watching it at her side.

And a promise of a sandy beach, free of the heartache that defined this girl’s life.


	2. Sand

Xion stumbles back through a corridor of darkness, her chest aching and her head pounding. It spits her back into The World That Never Was, her feet falling into the familiar grooved tiles that she had just left.

The Organization splits their time between here and the Keyblade Graveyard for reasons no one has ever bothered to explain to her. The castle, for existing in an empty city surrounded by Heartless, is much more comfortable than that awful place.

But those thoughts are far from Xion’s mind at the moment. Most thoughts are, save for the memory that girl - _Namin_ _é_ , part of her mind supplies while her studies shout _Kairi_ \- gave her. She remembers a clock tower, standing watch over a sleepy town; the taste of ice cream, salty-but-sweet on her tongue; a sunset more beautiful than anything else in any world; and two people at her side.

She knows that she loves them, whoever they are. They matter more to her than anything else. Except when she tries to remember their faces and voices, they blur until nothing but static remains.

Who are they? And more importantly, where are they now?

Xion only knows a few things about herself. She knows that she is a Replica created by Vexen and based somewhat off Sora, the principal Keyblade wielder that the other Guardians of Light rally around. She knows that she was involved in the first Organization XIII. She knows that she grew unstable for whatever reason and failed the task previously given to her.

She now knows that she’s forgotten the most integral parts of her past life.

“What, unable to complete a simple reconnaissance mission without someone else holding your hand? Or have you broken down already?” Saïx spits, towering over Xion from a much greater height than he usually does. Xion bites back a groan when she realizes that the floor is also much closer than it should be. She pushes herself onto her hands and knees and slowly stands up, shooting him a defiant look even as she struggles to maintain her balance.

Saïx’s eyes widen before narrowing again. He looks at her like she’s less than human. “Perhaps I should say broken down _again_.”

It hits her, then. He doesn’t just know about who she used to be. He _remembers_ her.

“In the old Organization, I was always with people,” she says in a rush. “Who were they? You know, don’t you?”

If he thinks of her as broken, then so be it. He’s not entirely wrong. Without those other people making up her poor excuse of a heart, she’s nothing more than a puppet.

“Instead of chasing after bonds that no longer matter, I’d suggest focusing on your task,” he says, summoning a new corridor of darkness and pointing to it. “That’ll take you to the proper world. If you can’t figure out your way back, then that’s just proof of what you truly are.”

Sometimes Xion can feel the darkness swirling within her. She is one of the thirteen chosen Seekers of Darkness, so the surges of doubt and anger are expected. There’s light within her, somewhere, just as there’s light within most of them.

But a candle in a cavern doesn’t do much in the end.

She pauses in front of the corridor of darkness. “I’ll go, but half of this organization is made of replicas. I don’t know who you used to be, but Xehanort picked me for a reason.”

Before the corridor closes, she hears the anger in Saïx’s voice as he spits out one final thing.

“Just remember that your space is not as special as you may think. You can be replaced at any time.”

The truth in his words sting, even as she knows it could apply to him just as easily.

 

* * *

 

The Arcade is a strange world, full of the strangest beings. A small orange creature babbles to Xion in a language she has no hope of understanding as she wanders through the central hub of the world. A blue man who the others call Surge Protector apprehends her every time she tries to enter a new section of the world, forcing her to use corridors of darkness just to get from one side of a room to the other.

Without any clear intel on the exact location of the new pure heart, Xion’s forced to search methodically through each subsection of the world. The residents call these subsections games, every one of which hosts a medley of vastly different beings. One she goes into is a battle royale, reminding her of the endless combat drills Vexen put her through after she was first brought back. She manages to leave that place after only having to fight one battle against a man with terrifying muscles and a punch that can shatter walls.

Towards the end of the fight, he knocks Xion’s Keyblade out of her hand. As she runs to get it, he swings another punch aimed right at her head. She ducks and responds with a punch of her own, sending him flying away long enough for her to grab her Keyblade again and finish the battle. The same light that surrounds his fists briefly set hers aglow.

She didn’t know she could do that.

For the other parts of the world, she’s mostly able to stick to the shadows. One game leaves her huddled under a long countertop as the bartender slides drinks back and forth to his patrons. Another forces her to use up all her magic trying to defeat the legions of flying bugs everywhere. They’re not Heartless, but they’re definitely no better than them. After seeing some of the game’s residents shoot the bugs out of the sky, Xion figures out that she can shoot projectiles out of her Keyblade, too.

Most of the games, as Xion combs through them, fall into the same pattern. Beings who have mostly light in their hearts fight against beings who have mostly darkness in their own hearts. Not a single one of them is made of pure light or pure darkness, which does nothing to help her in her own quest.

Things change when she enters Sugar Rush. The moment she steps into the game, she inhales a lungful of sugary air. Coughing, she looks around and realizes that the bright colors aren’t just a facet of this game’s design. The entire place is made of sweets. She hopes that includes ice cream, too.

Another thing that tips her off is a small creature that comes out to stare at her from the shadow of a lollipop streetlamp. A Heartless, looking entirely like a gumball with glowing eyes and little feet, waddles its way in front of her, like a soldier waiting for orders.

She used to take down the Heartless. Now, the darkness surging within her gives her command over them. They ally themselves with whatever dark being is the strongest within a given world - at least, according to Vexen.

According to Vexen, they’re also drawn to two things: Keyblade wielders, and pure hearts.

“Finally,” Xion says to herself.

“These gumdrop goofballs and jawbreaker jokers are definitely no subjects of mine!” a voice grumbles. Xion scrambles for a hiding spot - the less she interacts with the denizens of these worlds, the better, especially now that she’s so close to the pure heart - but she’s spotted before she can. A short man in a goofy outfit topped with a crown marches up to her, shouting. Behind him is another gumball and two donuts with matching funny hats. “And you! Another intruder trying to go Turbo in my game, hmm?”

His words are intriguing, but what’s more intriguing are the dark swirls of energy that come off him. He’s the ruler here, judging by his words, but that much darkness in his heart means that he’s no kind ruler.

He might be a hint towards finding the pure heart she’s looking for.

“Um, no, I promise I’m not!” Xion says. “I’m from another game, but I’m only here to find someone.”

“Another person looking for Ralph, then?” he asks, clapping a hand over his face. “Sweet Mike ‘n Ike, before long we’ll have Pac-Man in here too!”

Xion still has no idea what he’s talking about, but she can’t compromise her mission by letting him know. “Yes! Do you know where Ralph is?”

The man chortles. “If I did, would I be wandering around in circles looking for him?”

Xion sighs. “No, I guess not…”

“What’s your name, anyways? And what game are you from?” he asks, the doughnut men behind him slowly inching closer to Xion. They both pull the giant strips of licorice from their belts and hold them out towards her menacingly. As if they could even touch her. “You look like something out of Edgy Teen Showdown 2.”

Xion hadn’t visited that game, but if he’s referencing it, then it doesn’t hurt to make up a lie, right? “I’m from the third one, actually,” she says. “We’re pretty new.”

“Name?” one of the doughnut men demands.

“Xion.”

The short man studies her, but after a few moments, he bursts into another round of chortling and extends his hand. “Well, nice to meet you, Xion! I am King Candy, ruler of Sugar Rush. Surge Protector must be on Ralph’s case if you’re here. Of course he’d bring a fresh face in to find him. I have a kingdom to get back to ruling, so could you do me a favor and bring the little girl Ralph is with back to me? She’s a glitch, you see, and she won’t regenerate if one of these gumball ghouls rolling around catches her off-guard! I just want to make sure she’s safe,” he explains, the doughnuts behind him finally backing off.

The dark swirls coming off him lash around him in angry tendrils. He’s obviously lying - whatever he wants with that girl is far from benevolent. But this is the best lead she has, so she’ll gladly take it. “Of course,” Xion says. “I’ll take Ralph back with me and I’ll make sure that the girl comes back to you.”

“Perfect! My men will continue looking for them too, of course. But don’t worry, they can handle themselves,” King Candy says. He hops over a hill and out of view, the doughnut men splitting off to search somewhere else and the gumball dutifully following after the king. A moment later, Xion hears something sputter to life - an engine, maybe? - before fading away, leaving her all alone.

She looks back at the Heartless still watching her from the shadows. Summoning her Keyblade, she bonks it over the head and sends its heart flying away.

She doesn’t need the Heartless to do her job for her. She’s stronger than that. She’ll prove to Saïx that she can do it on her own.

 

* * *

 

The bottle-shaped mountain starts rumbling in the distance, tremors rocking the ground beneath Xion’s feet. Curious, she decides to examine it. As she gets closer, a larger amount of Heartless appear, all watching her, waiting for her command.

She destroys all of them easily. Even after they’re gone, she can still feel their stares on her skin. How could the first Seeker of Darkness ever tolerate these things? Was he really so empty that he didn’t even care about the way they devour everything good in sight?

Probably.

Xion shudders, but keeps walking.

There’s nothing very special about the base of the mountain, save for the constant rumbling she hears from within.

Vexen taught her about reconnaissance, in that vague time before she met Naminé (the name that feels so much more right to give the girl who gave Xion back her most precious memory, she’s decided). He took her to a world filled with meadows and a quaint town alight with the flames of celebration and helped her learn her way through the world. He instructed her to search every corner of her surroundings, as even the smallest findings could lead to major breakthroughs. She barely understood his words then. His frustrated sighs communicated so much more than his lectures did.

But Xion understands now. She searches diligently, noting the patterns of the lollipops that criss-cross along the base of the mountain. When she finds a pair that stands out against the uniform pattern, she knows she’s made a breakthrough.

Instead of her hand pressing against solid material, it simply goes through. Found it.

The rumbling from inside wasn’t activity from the mountain, but the sound of a tiny engine revving along a track. A small girl whoops and hollers as she zooms along in an incredibly colorful racecar. A giant of a man watches her proudly.

Xion opens a corridor of darkness, depositing herself on the highest ridge she can find to watch them from a less visible position. Their laughter, so light and carefree, stirs something deep within her and makes her chest lurch painfully. Did she share that same laughter with her own friends, back on that clock tower?

She doesn’t even remember what world that tower’s in. Certainly none of the ones she’s visited so far. She curls within herself and continues to watch them. As much as she wants to go find them, she has a duty to fulfill.

The man - Ralph, she guesses - is obviously not the light of this world. The darkness within him is a childish thing, small and scared, but pure hearts don’t give in to whims that immature.

The girl is interesting. Xion can’t quite read her; for as much as she tries to reach, she can’t find any darkness in her heart. Yet her light is fuzzy and unfocused; far from the sharp burst of light or steady glow Vexen insisted characterized every single one of the previous Princesses of Heart.

Nothing at all like the girl Naminé shared her heart with.

Whatever happened to this little candy girl, whatever drove her to live inside of a mountain and hide away from the rest of the world, is probably the same thing that damaged her light.

Xion has a feeling she may know who’s behind it all.

It doesn’t take long after that realization for watching them to become too painful to continue. She can’t even remember her own friends, but she misses them so much. The biggest piece of herself is missing, but the only person who knows how to find it is the same person that would rather see her fail.

Xion opens another corridor of darkness and leaves, allowing it to deposit her on the outside of the mountain. She sees some kind of movement out of the corner of her eye and immediately summons her Keyblade and chases after the mysterious figure.

When she gets close enough, she realizes that it’s not another Heartless. It’s one of the doughnut men, sprinting back towards the massive castle that stands on the distant horizon.

Oh no.

She wasn’t planning on telling King Candy where the girl was hiding.

 

* * *

 

Of course King Candy finds Ralph and the girl - Vanellope, Xion learns.

Of course King Candy manipulates Ralph into going against his friend and destroying the one thing she loved most.

And of course Xion watches this all from the shadows, paralyzed by the sudden realization that this all feels so familiar. She hears Vanellope wail and scream from the branch Ralph forced her to hang from, thrashing with all her strength as she fails to get down and stop him.

Did her own friends meet the same fate? Is that why she’s here and they’re not?

She doesn’t even remember how she died. All she knows is that she was unstable, and that instability led to her own death. How did she meet that end? Was it at someone else’s hand?

King Candy drags Vanellope away, darkness seeping off him with every step. Did someone do that to one of her friends? Take them away and keep them trapped?

She has no idea and it makes her furious.

Vanellope needs someone to help her, but she also needs her friend back. Xion could easily free her from wherever King Candy will take her only to leave her alone again. She doesn’t need a stranger to play hero.

She needs the person she called her hero.

Xion follows Ralph back to his own game, one of the few that she didn’t visit before entering Sugar Rush. It’s a small place, consisting of one building and a small mountain of bricks discarded off to the side. She opens a corridor of darkness and steps out onto the roof. From here, she can see the outside containers of the other games, each sectioned away in its own kind of computer.

So the people she’s all met are data, aren’t they? Kind of like her. According to Vexen, he was able to reconstruct her original appearance based on the data he still had stored about her.

That, and a seashell he had gotten from somewhere. She still hasn’t asked him where he found it.

The one directly across from Xion’s view is covered in bright pink. It’s a bit much for her own tastes. She can’t make out the title, but there’s an S and an R in the title, and a very familiar girl’s face adorning the side of the machine.

Maybe Vanellope isn’t the glitch everyone thinks she is. Maybe she’s just corrupted data, looking to be connected back to her world.

That’s it! That’s how Xion can get Ralph to go back to her. But how can she get him up here to see this?

“Still failing to complete your mission, I see,” a familiar voice says behind her, bracketed by the even-more-familiar sound of a corridor of darkness opening and closing.

Xion spins on her heel to find Saïx standing there, watching her with disdain.

“Actually, I found the new heart. You didn’t need to hold my hand,” Xion says, smirking as Saïx’s face twitches. At least she’s pretty sure she has, but Saïx doesn’t need to know that.

“Then why are you still here?” he asks dismissively. “You should have reported back by now.”

“She still needs help!” Xion says. “She needs her friend back.”

“Her _friend_?” Saïx repeats. Some sort of realization crosses over him, leaving behind nothing but negativity. “Then tell me, where is this friend? Why aren’t they already with the girl?”

“I’m trying, okay!?”

“No you’re not. You’re standing here, wasting time.”

Xion moves towards him, her Keyblade materializing in her hand. “Why are you so cruel to me!? What did I ever do to you, huh!?” she asks. His harsh words hurt, stirring the darkness within and prompting it to purr about how, chosen or not, she doesn’t belong in the Organization. Chosen or not, there are others eager to replace her. This role - as one of the thirteen Seekers of Darkness - is all she has left now. Saïx is wrong. He has to be, but she can’t make herself fully believe it.

Saïx’s eyes flash. “You don’t even remember how useless you used to be. The only thing you were ever good for was distracting him from everything he used to care about.” His own weapon materializes in her hand.

“What are you even talking about!?”

“And you don’t even remember him, do you? Either of them? He went on and on about how your bond was real, but how could it ever be real when you can’t even remember his name?” Saïx smirks as Xion backs away, her grip faltering on her Keyblade as its teeth clang against the ground. “I bet he still fails to realize you ever existed.”

The darkness within Xion bursts and she sprints towards Saïx, her Keyblade raised and ready to strike. Saïx blocks her with his Claymore, pushes her weapon away, and sends her tumbling off-balance. He follows with a strike of his own, but Xion hops back before the hit connects.

They trade blows back and forth, Saïx’s eyes flashing gold as he obviously struggles to maintain his composure. They’re at a standstill; neither of them are able to make a solid hit.

No one wins. They only stop when a pair of heavy footsteps thud below them. Someone is coming. With one final swing, Saïx forces Xion to jump back and is swallowed by a corridor of darkness. Unable to conjure a corridor of her own in time, Xion swings off the side of the building and holds on to the edge of the roof.

Her grip strains, muscles exhausted from her fight with Saïx. She won’t be able to hold on for long, but she won’t allow herself to fall. Not until she’s certain Ralph knows.

“Gene? Mary? Deanna? Anyone?” he calls out, his loud voice thrown around the empty area as he must be looking around. “That’s weird. I could have swore I heard something up here…” he sighs. “So much for being a hero.”

Xion peeks over the edge, watching closely as Ralph finally looks out to the distance and sees Vanellope’s portrait. She has a great view of his back and nothing else, but the way he tenses up is enough to tell her all she needs to know.

Vanellope won’t be alone for much longer.

Satisfied, she opens a corridor of darkness and clambers back up to the roof, disappearing into it before Ralph can even look behind himself.

 

* * *

 

Xion returns to Sugar Rush and finds it overrun with monsters. Strange bugs swarm through the sky, attempting to devour everything in sight. A tall woman destroys the creatures with deadly precision; she doesn’t need anyone to save her.

What Xion focuses on are the vicious Heartless bugs that terrorize the landscape. These, unlike the candy Heartless from earlier, turn on anything and everything they encounter. She has no power over them, but she does have more than enough power to dispatch them.

Ralph and Vanellope, along with the powerful woman and a much shorter, kinder man, work together to defeat a monstrous King Candy and the bugs he’s tried to control. Vanellope zips around the world in her cart, her glitch allowing her to basically teleport from place to place with ease.

Xion sends a Firaga barreling towards another squad of Heartless as King Candy flies into the soda fountain of light that the bugs are drawn to like magnets.

But when his body is destroyed, his heart remains, twisted and corrupted beyond repair. A massive Heartless roars from within the mountain. Xion rushes towards it, easily able to find the entrance again.

It floats in the rush of molten cola, roaring angrily. A large Heartless emblem adorns its helmet as it glares at her with glowing eyes. Sickly wings keep it afloat, connected to an insect's torso. It has no legs, just a set of four wheels that’ll make it difficult to follow on the ground.

And it is covered head-to-toe in rotten candy.

Xion readies her Keyblade and fights not just for her life, but for theirs.

It’s a hard battle, but the glitching ability she’s picked up from watching Vanellope makes it much easier to get close to King Candy’s Heartless and strike him down. Despite whatever Saïx might say, being a Replica has its advantages. When he finally falls, his heart escaping to Kingdom Hearts as his form fades to dust, the mountain calms down as well.

Xion leaves the mountain to find Vanellope and Ralph again, just in time to see her roll across the finish line and be restored to her rightful position. The change is instantaneous. As the world connects back to her, the light in her heart is finally allowed to shine once more.

Her friends don’t notice, but the darkness inside of Xion recoils at such intense light. She pays it no mind.

This new Princess of Heart has been restored to her rightful place. She is safe, and more importantly, she is happy.

Xion’s mission is finally over.

 

* * *

 

Xion doesn’t report her findings to Saïx. Why would she? Xemnas, Master Xehanort’s right-hand self and the one who actually interacts with the rest of the Organization on his behalf, is her true superior. She stands in the Keyblade Graveyard, perched on a rock pillar that he’s designated specifically for her.

Vexen stands on it from time to time, whenever he decides to muse here, but Xemnas has made it clear: this is her spot, and no one else’s.

He takes her news with the same mysterious smirk he always wears. She can never figure out what’s going on inside of his mind, but his praise at her success leaves her unable to stop smiling.

She did it.

Best of all, Saïx is nowhere to be seen.

With the other new seven pure hearts identified and carefully kept track of by some of the other Organization members, Xion finds herself with a surprising amount of free time. There are still smaller missions to go on; items to gather and worlds to stake out for additional information.

Most of all, it gives her a lot of time to think. She tries to visit Vexen a few times, but he’s so absorbed in his research that he barely registers her presence. He’s made at least two dozen other Replica models at this point, but there’s one in particular he can’t stop working on. He’s desperate to perfect it and refuses to explain why.

She catches him a few times engrossed in whispered conversations with Saïx, every last one of which is quick to make her leave. She’d rather train with Dusks for an entire day straight than have to talk to _him_ again.

The most Vexen does is pass her a pair of gold contacts and make her swear to never let anyone see her without them in her eyes.

The days pass by, each one bringing her closer to closer to her destiny. Master Xehanort’s gatherings of his chosen darknesses go from rare events to almost daily meetings.

Finally, the goal they’ve all worked towards appears on the horizon. The thirteen of them stand on those lonely pillars and discuss every facet of the chosen day. Every single potential pathway is examined, every movement by the Guardians of Light accounted for and discussed in detail.

All seven of them have been assembled, now. Kairi is one of them. Xehanort makes a special note of her; she is the lone failsafe. As a pure heart, she must be kept alive at all costs until at least twelve of the keys are made. Even if the Guardians fail, she still remains as one of the seven hearts they need.

Xehanort assigns Xion to fight her. “As a Replica created from Sora’s memories of Kairi, you are connected to her in a way that no one else here is. Tomorrow, you will face her in battle. If our original plan goes awry, you are to take her away from the battle and keep her contained until we are able to gather her fellow pure hearts. Do you understand?”

Xion glances at Saïx out of the corner of her eye. Some part of her revels in his rage. She is the first one given a task. Not only that, it’s one of the most important.

She’s earned her place within this new Organization. She is more than just a puppet, regardless of whatever he may think. She will face this new task, and she will succeed.

As much as she doesn’t want to fight Kairi, this is her role. She won’t fail now, not again.

“Yes, Master Xehanort,” Xion replies. “She will not beat me.”

“Very well,” he says, his chuckle like rocks scraping against metal. She hates the sound.

He continues to hand out assignments to the other Seekers of Darkness, outlining the rest of tomorrow’s plan. They will all pair off to fight the Guardians of Light in groups of two and three. No one will face Sora directly; he is to be trapped in the labyrinth until the other Guardians are defeated. Only then will Master Xehanort and his strongest selves engage him.

Xion waits patiently for her own group to fight with. Kairi, as she learns, will most likely gravitate towards the other new Keyblade wielder she trained alongside. Her bond with the young Keyblade master Riku is strong, but she’ll know her companion’s style of fighting best.

Her companion is a traitor to the old Organization: Axel. Larxene and Marluxia both bristle at the name, though Master Xehanort refuses Larxene’s demand to, as she says, “Rake my knives down his ugly face.”

Saïx is to fight him, alongside with Xion. His eyes, sclera and all, turn gold as he protests the decision. His hair stands on end as his claymore comes to his side, visibly shaking with restrained rage.

Master Xehanort will have none of it. Saïx’s protests are ignored, giving Xion a dirty sense of satisfaction. Let him suffer, just like he’s made her suffer.

Finally, the meeting ends. The rest of the day is hers to do whatever she’d like. There’s a good chance she won’t survive this encounter. Even if she doesn’t meet her end at Kairi’s Keyblade, she may very well meet it at Master Xehanort’s. She doesn’t trust him, not even after all this time.

Vexen advised her, before the meeting, to tie up any loose ends she may have.

The only one that matters is that sunset at the clock tower, and the beach they promised to visit together.

If Saïx won’t give her an answer, then there’s only one other person who might be able to.

She takes out her contacts, leaving her eyes blue once again, and leaves.

 

 

* * *

 

Destiny Islands feels familiar in a way that it shouldn’t. If Xion didn’t know any better, she’d attribute it to her connection to Sora.

But those memories were never hers, and she’s never once missed them. The sand crunching beneath her boots and the smell of salt in the air feels like part of a past life much closer than his.

Maybe this is the beach her friends were supposed to visit.

She lets her heart, the small fragment of it that hasn’t been swallowed by darkness, guide her here. Naminé - and by extension, Kairi - has to be here somewhere.

It takes Xion a while to find her, but eventually she spots a patch of pink sitting by the shore. Xion approaches her slowly, though she doesn’t summon her Keyblade. Kairi wouldn’t attack her. Not here. Not yet.

Kairi greets her with a small smile that doesn’t reach her eyes - something that a part of Xion’s mind supplies must be influenced by Naminé. “Hello,” she greets, patting the sand next to her in an invitation to sit, “I didn’t think I would see you before tomorrow.”

“You’re not surprised I’m here,” Xion points out.

Kairi shakes her head as she touches her chest. “I think Naminé sensed you again.” She sighs, tucking her knees in and hooking her chin over them as she looks out to the sea. “Do we really have to fight, Xion?”

“Do we have any other choice?”

Kairi shrugs. “I don’t know what Xehanort’s told you, but you don’t have to listen to him. You can leave whenever you want. If we took in Axel, we’ll definitely take you,” she adds with a giggle.

Her laugh doesn’t reach Xion. Saïx’s words flood her mind, making her sick to her stomach. She grits her teeth. “I can’t! They have reserve darknesses. They’ll replace me the moment I hesitate. You don’t understand. You have a home. You have friends. I don’t. That place is all I have.”

Kairi’s face falls. Guilt stabs in Xion’s gut. She didn’t mean to hurt her. “What about Naminé? She cares about you. So do I.”

Xion shakes her head. “They think I’m a sham. I can’t let them be right.”

She can’t let Saïx be right. She just can’t.

“Besides,” Xion adds, “It doesn’t matter where I run. They’ll always find me.”

It’s strange, how familiar this conversation feels. Did she think about this when she was first created? Where did she run to?

Did any of it even matter in the end? She wishes someone would tell her.

For a little while, they simply chat. Even in her black coat and her heart of darkness, Kairi doesn’t see her as an enemy. She wouldn’t open up the way she does if she didn’t trust Xion.

Kairi tells her about her life. She talks about her earliest memories of a kingdom she can’t remember and the grandmother who disappeared when that world fell. Mostly, she talks about her life on these islands. Her childhood spent combing over every inch of these islands with Sora and Riku sounds wonderful, like something out of a fairy tale.

Until this world also fell to darkness, and she lost herself. Time and time again, Sora and Riku kept her safe, only for Sora to disappear and for her to forget that he even existed for an entire year.

She talks about Naminé and the pieces of her heart that aren’t hers. How badly she believes that this girl deserves to live and how she fights for her too. Her Keyblade carries the weight of so many people.

“Yen Sid told me I didn’t have to fight. But I got so _sick_ of waiting here. Sora’s risked his life for me so many times, and all I ever did was forget about him. I’m never going to let that happen again. He can’t get rid of me that easily,” she says, giggling.

Xion finds a laugh hiding in the back of her throat, but it doesn’t leave there. What does escape her is surprise. “I didn’t know you forgot about Sora,” she says.

“Everyone here did. I knew something was missing, but I could never explain what it was. No one believed me, either. Riku never forgot about him, but even he thinks it’s only because he actually saw Sora asleep there every single day.”

Maybe Kairi understands Xion’s feelings better than she originally thought. “Do you remember the memory Naminé gave me back? I still don’t know who those people in it are. I’ve searched every database the Organization has, but nothing helps. I still can’t remember and the only person who does won’t tell me.”

Kairi smiles. “Well, maybe Naminé can help! She woke up a little when you came here. Maybe you can try connecting with her again?”

It’s not guaranteed, but it’s exactly what Xion came here for. She nods and scoots until she and Kairi face each other. Xion holds her hands out, letting Kairi take them in her own.

Kairi’s hands are so warm, even as the light within her burns painfully. Xion bites back a hiss and squeezes her eyes shut. Did it hurt this much last time as well, or was she too much of a shell to even recognize what pain was?

Still, it’s nothing compared to the hurt left by the gap where her friends should be.

She feels another consciousness, something a little darker than Kairi’s pure heart, stir. Naminé. Xion reaches out to her with the small fragment of her own light, desperate not to scare her away.

Until a pair of footsteps crunch along the sound, accompanied by a deep voice that sends pain shooting through Xion’s skull. Gasping, she breaks away from Kairi and clutches her head desperately, deaf to Kairi’s worried voice.

“Heeeey, Kairi!” the voice says. “Where’d you go? You can’t get out of treating me to dinner that easily, you know!”

That voice… it sounds so familiar, sending another pain piercing straight through her heart. If Xion wasn’t already sitting, she would have collapsed by now. A small part of her registers Kairi frantically shaking her shoulder. She’s saying something else; it takes too long for Xion to make it out.

“-go! Before Axel sees you!”

Axel…?

The traitor…?

Kairi hops to her feet and drags Xion to her own, looping Xion’s arm around her shoulders. “Quick, summon one of those dark portals you all use!” she says, constantly checking over her shoulder. “I can’t see him fight you. Not yet.”

Maybe it’s Kairi’s power, some sort of healing magic inherent to being a Princess of Heart, that gives Xion the strength to leave. Kairi’s pushing her along the entire way, physically shoving her into the portal.

Before it closes, she glimpses a shock of bright red spikes.

 

* * *

 

Xion thinks about visiting that clock tower one last time. She really does. Vexen was kind enough to leave his research long enough to tell her its location.

But going there hurts without knowing who she shared those sunsets with, and she’s been hurt enough today.

Instead, she curls up on her bed in The World That Never Was, avoiding her own reflection in the small mirror that hangs on the other side of her room. Every part of her was cultivated by someone else. The only thing that was ever hers is gone now.

At the very least, she can go into her final battle as herself. There’s no need to keep pretending to be filled with the same darkness as the others. If the only thing that can remain true to herself is her eye color, then so be it.

Someone knocks on her door. Curious, Xion looks towards it. No one in this castle _knocks_ , or at least no one who would ever bother talking to her.

“Come in,” she calls, her voice weak.

She bristles as the door swings open and Saïx steps in. Instantly, Xion can tell there’s something different about him. He puts on negativity with the same ease she puts on her gloves each morning, but sadness has never been part of his ensemble.

He sits on the edge of Xion’s bed, prompting her to scoot as far away from him as possible. He sighs heavily and talks down to his clenched fists. “He doesn’t even remember who you are, and yet he still buys you an ice cream without hesitation.”

Xion inches towards him, awed. It all slides into place, the puzzle not quite solved, but illuminated. “You met with one of them, didn’t you? Who was it?”

“The fool thinks he can bring me home,” Saïx says, almost rolling his eyes, “As if we didn’t cast that away over a decade ago.”

“You’ve been friends a long time, haven’t you?”

“I don’t remember what my life was like before him,” he says, casting an unreadable look at Xion. “Not even losing the only other person who ever understood us or losing our own humanity could come between us. Not until you and that other whelp came along.”

The other person in her memory. So Saïx was only close to one of them?

Saïx continues to speak. “You didn’t have our past. You didn’t have the promises we made. You didn’t even have a _face_. So tell me, why did he pick you over everything we had built?”

Xion thinks of Kairi and the way she gives her love so freely to everyone she meets. She fights for so many people in her life. She even gives her light to her enemies - to the same girl who will stare her down from the teeth of her Keyblade tomorrow.

“It doesn’t have to be one or the other,” Xion says, turning to face him, immune to his fierce glare. “Hearts are powerful enough to love so many people! Caring for one person doesn’t mean you stop caring for everyone else.”

Saïx slams his fist into her bed and roars. “He _threw me away_!”

She gets it now. Every snide comment he’s ever made to her, every time he tried to belittle her, wasn’t just to see her suffer.

Saïx was hurting too, and like a wounded animal, he lashed out.

She thinks of Ralph and Vanellope, of the way they hurt each other when they were hurt themselves. It wasn’t right, but it didn’t have to be the end.

Xion thinks back to what Saïx said earlier. “How could he throw you away, if he promised to bring you home? That seems like the opposite to me.”

Saïx slumps back against the wall her bed lines, letting the smallest bit of control go. He laughs humorlessly. “You’re even less of a Nobody than I am. What little past you have you can’t remember. How can you lecture _me_ on bonds?”

“Because I’ve made them too,” Xion answers. “Just because I don’t remember doesn’t mean they’re gone. They’re always with me, just like they’re always with you.”

Something within Saïx shifts again, though Xion knows better than to comment on it. Slowly, he gets to his feet.

“Those answers you’ve been so desperate for? You’ll find them tomorrow.”

And with that, he leaves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i rented wreck it ralph on amazon just to write this chapter


	3. Sea

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks KH3 for leaving me the shattered remains of Kairi's characterization to work with. i tried my hardest to spin all the complete bullshit she gets stuck with in this game in a positive way. thanks game. thanks.
> 
> i didn't think i would finish this so fast, but I got really excited and wrote the majority of this chapter in one sitting. i'm really proud of how this turned out, and i hope you enjoy it too!

The day comes, not in a blaze of glory, but in quiet passing.

Kairi’s heart hammers in her chest, pounding so harshly she wonders if it’ll bring Naminé out of her slumber. Can she tell where Kairi is?

Does she know that the girl she worked so hard to help stands on the other end of the battleground, hood drawn and Keyblade poised to strike?

Axel can’t tear his eyes from the man at Xion’s side. She’s heard countless stories about him, almost as many stories as he’s told about Roxas.

She doesn’t remember him as Isa, the precocious boy with the intelligent eyes Axel dwelled on after countless training sessions, but as her kidnapper and assailant.

As Saïx.

Axel flips his Keyblade in his grip whenever he gets ready to fight - a strange holdover from his previous weapon. It reminds her of a coin flipping through the air. She’s never sure what side it’ll land on.

She doesn’t want to fight these people, but Xion’s words from the night before ring in her mind. What other choice do they have?

If they don’t fight, if they don’t _win_ , then Xehanort will just find another way to get what he wants. He’ll take the girls who accepted the powers of the last Princesses of Heart and break them to pieces. Then Sora will run off to save them, and Riku will run off to protect Sora, and she’ll be trapped yet again.

Not this time.

A yell rips it way out of her as she charges forward, Destiny’s Embrace comfortable in her grip. Axel stays at her side, their steps perfectly in sync.

 

* * *

 

Sora arrives, because of course he does.

Xion goes after him relentlessly, ignoring the way his heart pulls at her. She was foolish to believe that their connection died with her old life, but she lets her own Keyblade transform into a copy of Saïx’s Claymore and tries to smash him to bits.

What other choice does she have besides fighting? What else does she have to fight for, when the answer Saïx promised she’d find still feels so far away?

Sora blocks her attack with his own. “You don’t have to do this anymore,” he pleads. His voice is so kind. Too kind.

Their eyes meet, and the piece of herself that was missing all along finally returns.

 

* * *

 

Recompletion is too kind a word for the special type of dying it truly is. Saïx has experienced it twice now, the calm terror of losing himself to oblivion.

Is it worse than losing his heart in the first place? Perhaps.

Axel - no, _Lea_ \- rushes to his side as he fades, hoisting him up and holding him close. His face is so different from what it was when they were last human together. Adulthood left him with nothing but sharp edges, forever meant to be crushed by Saïx’s blunt force.

His face looks so different without his tattoos. If those teardrops were meant to keep him from crying, who did he shed those tears for?

Saïx?

Or the two that stand to the side, watching them as Saïx dies and Lea makes a fool of himself?

He admits what he couldn’t in front of Xion, what she picked up on regardless.

“I was jealous,” Saïx admits. Axel’s small chuckle under his breath is enough of a boon to justify admitting his weakness.

Roxas stares at him impassively, no doubt remembering the cruelties Saïx put him through in his old life, but Xion is a world apart from him. Her hands are clenched against her chest, looking at him with watery eyes.

The part of him that would be disgusted by her pity - or perhaps, her sympathy - must be already dead, because he can’t feel that anymore. If anything, it fills him with something different. Something that Isa once knew, but Saïx never has.

Peace.

 

* * *

 

Xion does not let her boys out of her sight, not even once.

Roxas is nothing short of astounding. He has a massive heart stuffed within a small body that really isn’t much bigger than her own, but there is power in how he holds his shoulders back and his head high.

He doesn’t have one Keyblade like everyone else. He has _two_. She gave him one of those. Even after forgetting her very existence, he still carried her weapon.

Some bonds are too strong to break.

Her heart - _hers_ , completely whole, no longer swarming with darkness but brimming with love - is close to bursting. She keeps crying off and on, her emotions uncontrollable except when she absolutely needs to hold herself together. She’s tried to be strong for so long now. She doesn’t have to try anymore.

And Axel is always right there, ready to offer a grin and lighten the mood. He’s done his fair share of crying too, but no one would ever blame him. When he jokes with them, it’s like nothing ever changed.

Like they’re back in Twilight Town, watching the most beautiful sunset Xion’s ever seen as ice cream drips down their fingers.

To be fair, she’s not the only one who’s a little clingy. Xehanort - not Master, she will never bow to him again - could march down here at this very second and it _still_ wouldn’t be enough to tear them apart. He succeeded once.

He will never succeed again.

 

* * *

 

Xehanort takes Kairi.

But he can’t kill her. She’s too strong for that.

At the end of it all, when Xehanort has given in and even his spirit finds peace, Sora tries his hardest to put on a brave face.

The part of her that rested in him for so long knows the truth behind his every expression. Roxas must feel it too, given the way he stays tense besides her. Sora is terrified for Kairi. The only reason he hasn’t already broken down is because he stubbornly holds on to the hope that she isn’t dead.

Xion reaches out for Naminé first. Wherever she is, Kairi can’t be far behind. Her light is quieter, a gentle glow that’s just enough to illuminate Xion’s way, but it welcomes her all the same.

Naminé has no fingers to point with, no smile to offer Xion. What she offers is a concept. A path to take.

At the end is Kairi, as bright as ever.

“She’s not gone,” Xion says as she faces Sora. “I can feel her.”

Sora beams, and runs off to be the hero they all needed one more time.

 

* * *

 

There’s a long period of time before Sora and Kairi return. Without Kairi, there’s no way to restore Naminé.

Without everyone home, it feels like everyone collectively holds their breath. Like dark clouds that threaten rain, but never quite pour.

Even if they’re not here, life continues on. The first night after the almost-end of the world, Ansem the Wise sets up every single person within his castle in Radiant Garden. Ienzo carries piles of pillows twice his height as Aeleus and Dilan make beds with enough precision to mistake them for hotel staff instead of ex-Nobody guards.

When Vexen slinks out of a corridor of darkness, eyes as gold as ever, his plea for forgiveness towards Ansem the Wise is met with a hug. Demyx appears moments later, swinging his arm around Ienzo’s shoulders and demanding an audience for his newest song.

Ansem the Wise has rooms set up for them as well.

Roxas and Axel rip the mattresses off their beds and dutifully carry them into Xion’s room. From the commotion down the hall, Aqua and Terra are doing the same thing as they head to Ventus’s room.

Riku closes his door silently. It doesn’t open for the rest of the night, not even after King Mickey’s worried voice echoes through the halls as he checks on him.

It only takes Axel a few days to find them a permanent place to stay. He squirrels his way into finding a three bedroom house for them to share. It’s on the opposite side of town from the tram commons, which makes grocery shopping an immense chore, but rent much cheaper.

Axel only picked it because it had enough bedrooms and it was a ten minute walk from the clock tower.

He got it so they could all have their own room, but every night Xion and Roxas drag their bedding into Axel’s massive bedroom and stay there instead.

Really, Xion thinks they’re all too afraid to let each other out of their sight for longer than it takes to take a shower. If they separate, then maybe this dream will come to an end.

Roxas abandons his Organization uniform almost immediately, covering himself in light colors and making it even easier to mistake him for Ventus. He guilt tripped Ansem the Wise into making him a skateboard, which he keeps permanently tucked under his arm when he’s not on it.

If Xion didn’t know better, if she hadn’t lived through it with him, she’d think he was no different than any other teenager here.

She and Axel can’t bring themselves to abandon their Organization coats quite yet. Not when it’s the only thing they’ve worn for so long.

Every single day, they go to the clock tower. It’s Xion’s turn to buy ice cream and balancing three sticks between her hands feels like the most natural thing in the world. She hands one to Roxas before sitting down and making him pass another over to Axel.

“I still can’t believe it,” Roxas says, looking off into the sunset. “This is our life now. No Organization, no missions to deal with. Just this.” He uses his ice cream to gesture all around them.

“Do you think we’ll have to go to school?” Xion asks, frowning.

“They’ll get me for truancy if you don’t,” Axel jokes.

Roxas rolls his eyes. “Yeah, right! They’d throw you in there with us.”

“I’ll have you know I, unlike you two pipsqueaks, am an _adult_ ,” Axel says, punctuating his words with a bite of his ice cream.

Xion giggles. “Are you? I had no idea.”

“We’ve only been together a week, and already you guys are throwing me under the tram! Whatever happened to respect?” Axel says, making some vague gesture erratic enough to send a fleck of melted ice cream directly into Roxas’s hair.

Scowling, he wipes it off his spike and onto Axel’s coat. “Respect is given to people who earn it,” he says.

“And covering Roxas in ice cream won’t help you,” Xion adds.

Axel groans. “Man, for all the digs Kairi gave me, she never made the dirty pot-shots you two do.”

Kairi and Sora still aren’t back. Even mentioning Kairi’s name brings that fact crashing back into their reality, leaving them in a melancholy silence. Roxas barely knew Kairi, but Xion knows he misses Naminé, and no one who shared Sora’s heart for as long as he did can weather his uneasy absence very well.

They’ll be back, though. Xion’s sure of it. All they need to do is wait.

“So this is how she felt, waiting on that beach for the others to come back. Maybe it was a good thing I tried to kidnap her,” Axel muses. No one laughs, so he takes another bite of his ice cream and is anxious to fill the silence once more. “Isa still isn’t here, either. I was kind of hoping that he’d just show up on our doorstep one day, but he’s hasn’t. Guess I really do need to drag him home.”

“You mean he might actually _live with us_? Saïx, right? The same guy who tried to murder each of us multiple times?” Roxas asks, disbelief hanging off his every word the same way his ice cream hangs dangerously off the edge of his stick.

“We’ve also tried to murder each other multiple times,” Xion points out. Roxas frowns at her for sabotaging his line of reasoning, but he can’t protest. She isn’t wrong. “Axel, I think he’s wanted to come home for a long time.”

Axel finishes off his ice cream and gets to his feet. “Then it’s settled! I’ll start looking for him tomorrow. Don’t be surprised if I don’t come back for a while. There’s a lot of stuff he and I need to hash out and I love you guys too much to make you listen to all that yelling.”

For the first time since they’ve been reunited, they split apart. Axel leaves them with a grin and a promise to be back when Isa’s ready to behave himself. The sleepover ends, but the dream doesn’t.

How can it, when it wasn’t a dream in the first place?

 

* * *

 

Kairi and Sora return to the Destiny Islands breathless and triumphant, hands clasped together like a lifeline keeping them afloat as they wade back to shore.

Riku waits on the edge of the water. He trips over himself two separate times in his rush to meet them. Kairi shrieks with laughter as he falls face-first into the surf. Sora digs his phone out of his pocket and they take a selfie with Riku’s skyward butt - the only part of him sticking out of the water anymore.

For a moment, they don’t feel like Guardians of Light. They don’t feel like they’ve fought to save every world from destruction time and time again.

They feel like teenagers goofing off the way they always should have.

Kairi knows that it won’t last forever. After what Sora gave up to find her, his days are steadily numbered.

But she’ll take what she can get.

When that moment finally does come, she’ll be the one to bring him back home once and for all.

 

* * *

 

When witches enter a long slumber, they aren’t afforded the luxury of waking up ever again.

Which is why the first emotion Naminé feels upon waking, wholly and entirely for herself, is surprise. She never expected to feel her eyelashes flutter against her face ever again.

There is no knight at her side, but there are scientists. Several of them.

Ansem the Wise, the man she met as DiZ, the one who helped her escape her prison only to lock her in a cage, kneels at her side.

The first words she hears with her own ears are, “Please forgive me.”

What follows next is a little like the fairy tales. Riku doesn’t bring a chariot, and frankly the King’s gummy ship looks a little silly, but Aeleus and Dilan bow as she walks past them. Riku takes her hand gently, like she’s a jewel too precious to handle without care.

Like she matters more than what she can do for him.

Kairi pulls her into a tight hug when they meet again. She smells like salt and sweet fruit. Her tears are warm against Naminé’s bare shoulder.

“You’re home,” she says, pulling back just enough to beam at her. Naminé beams back.

Sora thanks her no less than twenty times, finding things to thank her for that she’s pretty sure she had very little to do with. Riku takes her by the arm and leads her wherever she asks to go.

Kairi holds a tiara in her hands. It’s a cheap thing, made of plastic and inlaid with fake jewels.

She gently places it on Naminé’s head, and she cries harder than she ever has in the entirety of her short existence.

The witch becomes a princess.

 

* * *

 

Vexen’s atonement, as he soon learns, may never fully be complete. Demyx does not understand, content to spend his days lounging around the main plaza of Radiant Garden and badgering people into buying his music, but the other apprentices do.

So does Ansem the Wise.

With Naminé finally restored to her own self, their collective burden feels so much lighter. But three lives, precious as they are, still cannot tip the scales against the misdeeds they’ve hoarded over the decades.

Although there are small pockets of sweetness, tucked away in the corners of his days, that remind him of why he begged Ansem the Wise to apprentice him in the first place. Radiant Garden is as beautiful as his rose-tinted memories recall.

What gives him the most joy is the quiet insistency Xion takes in visiting him. She did this in Xehanort’s Organization as well, popping into his lab to ask a question she could have taken to anyone else, but with her heart complete and his current lab requiring a fair amount of travel to reach, each visit feels like a gift.

Even never cared to find someone to share his bed with. Vexen found that particular un-want to carry into his Nobody life, though he’s begun to understand why even the most bitter of hearts yearn to bring a new soul into the world.

His own parents were nothing more than a pair of depressing footnotes on the story of his life. With this girl, who will whittle away her entire day by spinning circles in the closest chair and offering to pick up food so he remembers to eat, he can do better than they did.

He wants to.

 

* * *

 

Axel’s still off looking for Saïx when Xion goes to visit Naminé. Roxas fully intends on tagging along until he’s stopped by a trio of teenagers their age. Xion racks her mind, wondering why they look so familiar.

It takes a little bit for it to sink in; they’re the same kids they used to see run around Twilight Town as if they owned every inch of it. The same people who inspired them, time and time again, to wonder what friendship really felt like.

They crowd around Roxas eagerly, the brown-haired girl gently holding back the other blonde boy so he doesn’t bowl Roxas over with his enthusiasm. Xion heads towards them, ready to interfere on Roxas’s behalf, but she stops when she hears Roxas laugh.

She’ll let him be. He hasn’t talked much about his time in the data version of Twilight Town, but she knows something there changed him. Maybe it was these people.

Xion finds Naminé sitting on a tiny pier within the Destiny Islands, her legs dangling over the side of the wood and a sketchbook on her lap. Naminé looks over her shoulder as Xion approaches, her tiny smile as infectious as the largest grin.

“I wanted to thank you,” Xion says, sitting down next to her. She wears the same white dress that Xion remembers her in, a sharp contrast to her own dark dress that she spent twenty minutes arguing with Roxas about whether or not to buy.

Naminé giggles softly. “I’ve heard that a lot recently.”

“You gave me back part of myself. That memory, even though I couldn’t remember who was in it, was the only thing that kept me from completely falling to darkness when I was in the Organization,” Xion says, still a little awed even now. Naminé was even less than a heart, less than a Nobody, less than even what Xion used to think of herself as, and yet she was able to do something so powerful.

Naminé doesn’t seem to share Xion’s wonder, not with the way she stills. She stares at her lap. “It was my fault in the first place. If I had found another way to wake Sora up, you wouldn’t have had to suffer so much. No one would have forgotten you. I’m sorry,” she says softly, each word carefully chosen. She’s spent so long thinking about this, hasn’t she?

So has Xion. “You don’t need to be sorry. I think it had to happen this way,” she says, letting her legs swing back and forth. “If I hadn’t gone back to Sora, Xemnas would have destroyed Roxas and I anyways. It hurt for a while, but things are better now.”

“But Sora…” Naminé trails off, clearly not comforted. Xion isn’t certain what she’s referring to, but she has an idea. Her connection to Sora since his return has been strained. He’s here, and he’s still himself, but with each passing day the connection grows a little less sure.

Almost like he’s slipping through her fingers, water passing in the gaps between skin. Roxas feels it too.

“He’s strong, and we can guide him back home again,” Xion says. Naminé nods slowly and goes back to sketching.

Xion waits quietly as she finishes. The completed drawing veered wildly away from its origins, given the light pencil marks that dart out from underneath the color in every direction. Naminé still uses crayons to color, leaving scraps of storybooks everywhere she goes.

It’s of them; Naminé curtsies as Xion stands next to her. Her Keyblade is in her hands, its teeth resting in the ground and making her look like a knight waiting for orders. Naminé turns it so Xion can get a better look. “Do you like it?”

Xion smiles. “It’s beautiful.”

“I never thought I’d be able to draw again. Is it selfish that I missed it more than everything else?”

“Why would it be selfish if you love it?” Xion counters gently.

“Everyone fights for someone else. You fought for Axel and Roxas. Kairi fought for Sora, for Riku, even for me. But I didn’t fight for anyone, not in the way that everyone else did. All I had was this,” she explains.

Xion pauses, carefully considering her words. “Well…” she begins, “No one treated you very well, right? I love Axel, but Riku’s told me the stories about what he did at Castle Oblivion. Sora and Riku’s Replica were the nicest to you, but they weren’t there for long. Even you and I didn’t know each other very well. Why wouldn’t you love the one thing that always stayed by your side?”

Naminé looks shocked at her answer, as if she had never considered that possibility before. Xion’s noticed, even with their few interactions, the way she tries to turn everything against herself. She has an amazing power, and so many people have forced her to do terrible things as a result.

Maybe she’s still looking for her own atonement, the same way the researchers do.

Xion can’t give her much in return, besides her own companionship. “Naminé?”

“Yes?”

“Next time I come here, will you look for seashells with me? I used to find the most beautiful ones in this world.”

Naminé’s smile feels like the sun on her skin. “I’d love that.”

 

* * *

 

Axel brings Saïx back to Twilight Town, each wearing a smile that Xion’s never seen on either of them before. Saïx’s eyes are different, no longer the honey-gold of someone consumed by darkness, but a sharp green. His scar remains, but there are rings in his ears that Xion knows weren’t there before.

Axel comes back with a piercing too, a tiny clasp in the upper cartilage of his left ear. Roxas watches them both warily as Axel leads Saïx inside their home.

He stays in Axel’s room. For the first few days, Xion only ever sees him on his way to the bathroom or carrying a plate to set in the sink. It’s probably for the best, given how Roxas starts moving like he’s expecting a Darkside to rise up from the shadows at any moment. One wrong move, and Saïx could very well find his neck trapped between Oathkeeper and Oblivion.

“How can you not be pissed!?” Roxas demands, kicking the door to her room shut behind him as he collapses onto her bed and fiddles with the seashell lamp he bought her last week. Where he gets the munny, she isn’t sure. “It was supposed to be the three of us, not the three of us and _him_! Axel got a _three_ bedroom place, not _four_.”

Xion can’t help it. She bursts into laughter, clutching her stomach and trying her hardest not to fall off her bed. Roxas’s frown grows deeper, turning into something closer to a childish pout than genuine anger. “What’s so funny!?” he asks.

She wipes away a few errant tears gathered at the corner of her eyes. “It’s just-” she wheezes out another laugh, “Saïx felt the same way about you and I.”

Roxas folds his arms over his chest and glares at his feet. “Yeah, but all I’ve done is give him a few dirty looks. We never went out of our way to make his life miserable like he did to you.”

Xion’s laughter finally fades. “Yes, but I forgive him.”

“What!?”

“He’s changed, Roxas. If he hadn’t, he wouldn’t have let Axel bring him back here in the first place.”

“That doesn’t make it right!” Roxas protests.

“No, it doesn’t. But I want to give him a second chance anyways. If he’s cruel to you or I again, _then_ you can chase him off. Deal?” she asks, giggling.

Roxas chuckles and sticks his hand out towards her. “Deal.”

They shake on it.

Their agreement doesn’t magically change Roxas’s behavior towards Saïx, but it’s enough for him to agree to help her with her own plan. He drags Axel out of the house under the guise of teaching him how to ride a skateboard. Xion creeps towards Axel’s room and gently knocks on the door, confident that Saïx is within. “Saïx? Can I talk to you?”

“Come in,” he responds. Xion slowly pushes the door open and enters, entirely cognizant of how a few weeks prior, she was the one sulking on the other side of the door. He’s still in his Organization coat, black leather dusting against the floor as he sits at Axel’s desk. None of the furniture in the room has changed - surely this can’t be enough for two people to share?

“Hello, Saïx,” she begins hesitantly. “How are you doing?”

Saïx turns to look at her. So much of him hasn’t changed, but there’s no longer any hint of malice in his eyes. It makes him look like an entirely different person. “Please, call me Isa.”

“Isa?” His old name. Not all of the ex-Nobodies go by their old names. Axel definitely doesn’t, though she’s heard the man in front of her call him Lea several times. Maybe he’s the only exception to Axel’s rule.

Saïx - no, Isa - nods. “Are you here to tell me to leave?” he asks. “I wouldn’t fault you for it. Not after the things I’ve done.”

Xion shakes her head. “Not exactly, but that _is_ what I wanted to talk about.”

Isa looks at her expectantly, waiting for her to continue.

“You were terrible to me,” she says. “Especially now that I remember what my time in the first Organization XIII was like. You took out your anger at Axel on Roxas and I, and then you refused to even tell me who they were when I missed them. And yet…” she considers him carefully, “You were the one who let me come back in the first place, weren’t you? And when Xehanort tried to make me into his puppet, you were the one who stopped him.”

“How did you know?” he asks.

Xion smiles. “Vexen told me.”

Isa shakes his head. “I swore that fool to secrecy,” he mutters.

“I’ve spent so much time thinking about that, and I still don’t understand. You hated me, so why did you help me?” Xion asks.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Isa says. “If I had remembered you after you were first remade, I would have let Xehanort control you completely. My journal entries were enough to make me dislike you, but I had seen him ruin a girl’s life once before. I couldn’t let him do it again. That’s all.”

Xion inches closer to him, like she’s approaching a wounded animal. “You’re kinder than you think, Isa,” she says gently.

Her words startle him and he looks away, embarrassed. Xion laughs; it’s an emotion that looks so foreign on his face.

“I shouldn’t have treated you the way I did. Lea’s given me enough lectures about it already, although I suppose they’re better suited to come from you,” Isa says. He doesn’t move, but she can see the way he braces himself for her hatred.

He doesn’t expect her to come even closer as she shakes her head. “I’m certain Axel’s gone over everything I could ever say and then some. He does like to talk.”

Isa smirks, so much fondness in such a simple expression that Xion’s sure she could never bring herself to hate him. “He does,” Isa agrees.

“I’d like to be your friend too, Isa,” Xion says, sitting down on the edge of Axel’s bed, as close as she can get to him.

“Every friend I’ve ever made was because of Lea,” Isa admits. “But how could you want to be my friend after the things I’ve done?”

“Because I forgive you,” Xion says. “And I think you should forgive yourself, too.”

She leaves without receiving an answer, quietly closing the door behind her as she goes. Isa needs a little space, which she’s more than willing to give.

An hour later, just as she’s about to head out to meet Roxas and Axel at the clock tower, she hears a door open.

Isa joins her.

 

* * *

 

They fulfill their promise to visit the beach together. It’s everything Xion ever dared to dream of and more.

 

* * *

 

When Sora disappears, Xion isn’t worried.

He’s strong. So are all the countless hearts he’s connected to.

He’s still out there, somewhere. She can feel him.

If someone like Xion, someone forgotten by everyone she loved, was able to find her way back home, then how much easier will it be for Sora?

Some bonds are too strong to break.


End file.
